


how selfish my heart

by susiecarter



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Rescue, Self-Esteem Issues, Touching, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: The music was too loud.The music was too loud, and the lights were too dim, and Hank was too goddamn old for this shit.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 65
Kudos: 199
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	how selfish my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WretchedArtifact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WretchedArtifact/gifts).



> This is only sort of casefic, WretchedArtifact, and is mostly an excuse for me to do my best to stack a bunch of your likes on top of each other—I just hope you enjoy it, and that you've had a fantastic time with Heart Attack! :D
> 
> Title borrowed from the poem "[The Current Isolationism](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89055/the-current-isolation)" by Camille Rankine.

The music was too loud.

The music was too loud, and the lights were too dim, and Hank was too goddamn old for this shit.

The Eden Club had changed since the last time Hank had been inside of it. Renovated, the whole interior redone. There were no more of those underlit pedestals, no poles where blandly seductive androids went through rote routines in too-tight underwear. It had been bought out after the revolution, part of a national stimulus-and-recovery deal to repurpose android-dependent businesses that had suddenly found themselves in violation of actual law, not just basic human decency.

It was a regular club now, with tables and a bar and everything. Specifically intended to cater to both biological and synthetic clientele—there was a bartender, a selection of drinks both alcoholic and otherwise for humans. But you could get other stuff, too. Your choice of a wide variety of nonconsumable flavor strips, for example, designed for the models like Connor who had the equipment to experience it; apparently they were all the rage, an infinitely variable sensory adventure nobody'd bothered inventing before. Worth it, though, now that androids were people, and specifically people who made and spent money.

Ah, capitalism.

Still, it was nice to see. Mixed crowd, visibly so: androids who'd kept their LEDs, androids who hadn't but gave themselves away with bare white cheeks or hair that cycled through all their available display colors once a minute, and humans who were just—there with them. Not scoping them out, eyeing them up to decide whether they were worth the price or how much damage they could take. Made the whole place feel different, in the best possible way.

Which set it apart from the other big difference since the last time Hank had been here, namely the part where Connor had slid his hand into Hank's where it was resting on Hank's thigh, and Hank couldn't afford to pull away.

Hank swallowed hard, and bit down on the inside of his cheek.

It was for the case. He'd told himself that about a million times tonight. Unfortunately for him, repeating that fact in his head wasn't making this any easier.

He might have been able to deal with the hand, by itself. Maybe.

But it wasn't just the hand. It was the way Connor was sitting, their barstools nudged close enough for Connor's leg to be touching Hank's from hip to ankle—and Connor had knobbly fucking ankles, impossible to ignore. It was the way Hank had already been suffering through this shit for almost half an hour, since the moment they'd parked and gotten out of the car: the way Connor had looked at him, earnest and intent, and had stuck close, had kept a hand on him one way or another every second. Had leaned in, when they were right at the door, so his clean smooth cheek touched Hank's beard, and then murmured, sheer solid romance, "At this angle, our physical interaction will be indistinguishable from a kiss to the exterior camera."

(The worst part was, hearing his voice say those words, unmistakably Connor on every single level, had totally fucking worked for Hank anyway.)

It was for the case, and it sucked so hard, it was wrenching Hank's heart out of his chest by torturously slow degrees, but it wasn't going to kill him.

Probably.

Just to twist the knife, Connor seemed pretty much fine with it. He had the faintest furrow in between his brows, the one he got when he was thinking a little too hard about things; but that was all. He'd kept his LED, and it was blue blue blue, only the barest occasional flicker into soft yellow.

But then it was for the case. Connor probably had cutting-edge undercover subroutines to—to optimize his flexibility and adaptability, or whatever the fuck. He was just doing his goddamn job.

Hank reached out with the hand that wasn't tangled with Connor's, picked up his half-finished drink, and knocked the rest back in one go.

If nothing else, at least he was going to get the satisfaction of making the department pay his tab tonight.

"Hank," Connor said, in a very precise way that told Hank he'd been about to say _Lieutenant_ instead and then had caught himself, and was pleased with himself for it.

Hank set his glass down—didn't slam it, there was no reason to slam it, because he was fine. This was fine, and it wasn't going to kill him.

"Connor," he replied, and risked a glance. Connor was watching him thoughtfully, that little furrow there again, and: a flicker, blue-yellow-yellow-blue-yellow.

"You seem uncomfortable," Connor said quietly. "If I'm acting in error, I need you to tell me. It's essential to our success tonight that I appear convincing to the casual observer."

Hank looked away. "What, you don't have any sample data? Haven't run any—any algorithms to isolate the sixteen most common behaviors of committed couples in public—"

"That's not how algorithms work," Connor said, and then, almost cautiously, "Hank."

Hank drew a long slow breath and then blew it out, and consciously forced his shoulders to come down from around his ears.

He was being stupid. He was being stupid and making this harder for Connor, who was bringing his fucking A game because he always fucking did; who didn't need Hank dragging him down, dead weight, and screwing them both out of their chance to make an arrest in this case.

"You're doing fine," he said, low, because it was the truth. "Don't worry, you're—you're great. I'm just—I haven't—" He stopped, and told himself to get a goddamn grip. "I haven't done this in a long time, that's all. Rusty."

"I haven't done this at all," Connor offered, and added after a moment, "And it isn't possible for me to accumulate rust."

Hank snorted, and couldn't help but glance over again; and Connor looked so goddamn proud of himself for making such a weak fucking joke that Hank had to laugh some more.

"Jesus," Hank said under his breath, unable to snuff out the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and then he raised his empty glass, met the bartender's eyes and raised his eyebrows, and got a nod in return.

"So this is a reasonable approximation of romantic behavior?" Connor said.

Hank managed not to tense up all over again.

"Sure," he forced out. "The early stages, anyway." He huffed out another laugh, but this time it didn't feel good. "If you were trying to imitate the later stages, you wouldn't be touching me, and you'd have to alternate between shouting at me and refusing to speak to me before you took all your stuff and left town."

Connor was quiet for a moment. "It's my understanding that romantic relationships are emotionally enriching and enjoyable," he said at last. "That doesn't sound enjoyable."

Hank sighed through his nose, rubbed his free hand across his face. Jesus, he wished the bartender would hurry up with that drink. He made himself turn, met Connor's eyes and gave Connor's hand an awkward half-apologetic squeeze, the barest increased pressure against Connor's long strong fingers, and okay, he needed to stop thinking about that immediately. "Don't listen to me," he said, "I'm—I'm full of shit. You know that, and don't you dare," he added, quick, as Connor opened his mouth, "try to get all cute and literal about how I'm actually seventy percent water or whatever."

Connor stopped, and closed his mouth.

" _Thank_ you," Hank said wryly. "Anyway, it's—it doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't always end up like that. Depends on the people, that's all. And when it's good—" He looked away again, and cleared his throat. "When it's good, it's the best goddamn thing in the world."

Connor didn't say anything for a minute. It managed to feel like a stretching silence even with music pounding along in the background all around them.

And then his hand moved in Hank's. He was—he squeezed back, rubbed his thumb gently over the back of Hank's own, drawing slow circles around the knuckle, and fuck.

"Guess you guys are all figuring that out right about now," Hank heard himself say. "Androids, I mean. Since you can feel it these days."

"Yes," Connor agreed. "Even models who don't have anatomically analogous physical attachments installed are capable of forming a private network connection."

Hank blinked. "A private network connection," he repeated.

"Across which essential logs and files can be shared almost instantaneously," Connor elaborated. "A process of—knowing one another, deeply. The material used to shape our basic external structure is conductive and capable of data transfer."

Man, that was weird to think about. Telepathy, almost. Telepathy, empathy: literally stripping off your skin to let somebody in, handing over what made you yourself and letting them rifle through it to see what they'd make of it.

Weird. Disconcerting. Alien. Not—not anything Hank had any reason to wish he could do, because one look at _his_ essential logs and files would probably send Connor screaming for the hills. He was lucky he couldn't, really, or else he'd probably already have fucked this up beyond repair—

"Like this," Connor said, almost hushed.

And then the texture of his hand in Hank's began to change.

Hank's breath caught in his throat. He could feel it, and he could see it, too, the spinning colored lights in here glinting off the gleaming surface of Connor's fingertips as Connor's skin melted off them. The loose clasp of Connor's hand shifted, his fingers just a fraction narrower like this than they were with the skin on. It wasn't like bone, wasn't like a skeleton: his hand was still warm, a steady even temperature, and whole, fully formed, no gaps or holes in the smooth plasticky shape of it.

And Hank was still fucking touching it, which Connor had _just_ finished telling him was basically android _sex_ , Jesus fucking Christ—

He jerked his hand sideways, face hot; but all Connor did was close his fingers a little, trapping Hank's between them. Connor re-closed the fraction of distance Hank had managed to open up, and for a second the whole flat of their palms was pressed together, Connor's clean and polished and perfect, Hank's wrinkled and stupidly fucking sweaty.

"Hank," Connor said under his breath, something cautioning in it, and—right.

Right. They were undercover. They were undercover as two people who were into each other, two people who loved each other, two people who did this all the time. Two people who weren't going to yank their hands away from each other at a sudden public gesture of intimacy, no matter how wildly motherfucking unprepared for it they might have been.

Shit.

Hank swallowed hard, let his free hand drop and dug his nails into his palm. He didn't even have anybody else he could blame for this. He'd set this trap for himself, and then he'd walked right into it, and now there was no way out but through.

In his defense, it had seemed like a good idea at first.

Or, well. Not a good idea, but the best one they'd had.

The revolution had shaken things up, because of course it had. For a while there, Hank hadn't been sure he was ever going to see Connor again, let alone what Connor was going to do or whether they were going to keep working together.

But the day after they'd met up at Chicken Feed, that perfect sunlit morning when it had somehow become possible to draw Connor in close and hug him, Connor had shown up at the PD, right on time: new suit jacket, not the one that had his model number written out on it, but he'd kept the stupid skinny tie, and Hank almost hadn't been able to breathe for seeing him standing there.

Hank had told him he didn't have to. Had told him to fuck off, actually, with his usual grace and eloquence, because he hadn't known how else to make sure Connor understood that nobody was going to demand anything from him anymore—that he wasn't a CyberLife loan to the department, hadn't been leased out to them like an expensive piece of forensic equipment; that he was allowed to turn around and leave and go do whatever the hell he wanted.

But Connor hadn't left. Connor had done that thing he did, blinked and tilted his head a little while he tried to figure out what the fuck Hank was actually trying to tell him.

He'd had an entire fucking list of reasons why him remaining in a public-facing position with the DCPD was a good idea, because of course he had. That it would be good PR, having a human-android partnership established pre-revolution persist afterward, proof that it was possible for humans and androids to work together to solve problems. That it would be sensible in the context of the department's continued operation, having teams with one human member and one android member, so they could respond to crimes, interact with victims and apprehend perpetrators of either type without the appearance of bias or favoritism.

Hank's heart had felt like a fucking rock, dropping into the pit of his stomach.

And he might have told Connor to fuck off for real if Connor hadn't stopped right then, looked at him with those dark steady eyes and said, "And I—want to. I want to, Hank."

He'd lined that one up like there was something daring about tacking it onto the list, letting such a subjective weight enter his calculations and saying so. But as far as Hank had been concerned, it was the only reason he'd given that was worth a damn.

He'd elaborated, when Hank had made him. He wanted to be Hank's partner; he liked it. He _didn't_ like the thought of Hank working alone. Pressed, he'd been willing to concede that he might not have chosen the police if he'd been starting from scratch. But he wasn't starting from scratch. He knew what it was like to work with Hank, and he wanted to do it some more. He had specialized skills and features specifically designed for forensic analysis, some of them functionally unique to his model, and he liked the idea of continuing to use those skills and features to help people, human and android alike.

"Okay," Hank had said, when he was done. "Okay, all right, I get the picture. But, look—" and it had been awkward as shit to say it, half-convinced he was just projecting his own idiotic feelings all over Connor, but he'd managed to jam it out anyway: "—you know you'd still be able to hang out with me or whatever, even if you didn't work here. Right?"

That, for some reason, had made Connor look at him in a strange intent way and then smile.

But Connor had always been a stubborn asshole, and apparently he'd had his mind made up.

It had been pretty quiet at first. That day, and for the next couple of weeks. There had still been plenty of work to do, cleanup, outreach, everything it took to reorganize the world around a population it had been doing its best to ignore up till then. But the PD's caseload had fallen off a cliff.

And then they'd gotten a case.

It had almost been reassuring, in the worst kind of way. A sign that everything was going back to normal after all; that you could have all the revolutions you wanted, but on some fundamental level underneath, you couldn't change _people_.

And it had seemed pretty straightforward, at first. Murder, human victim—and Hank had been guiltily, horribly grateful for that, because death sucked but it would have been indefinably worse if it had been an android; two fucking weeks of freedom, just starting to figure out how to live the new life you'd fought for, and then somebody snatching it out of your hands anyway.

But human, Hank could handle.

Letitia Morrison, 54. They'd worked their way through all her friends, her acquaintances, and she'd had a girlfriend, too. Olivia. A WR400. She'd been on the run, trying to make it to Canada; somebody had fucked her up, cracked her open and left her leaking blue blood in an alley just a few blocks down from where Letitia Morrison had lived. Letitia'd found her, taken her home, fixed her up a piece at a time.

She'd answered all their questions in a soft steady voice, and she'd cried the entire time, reaching up every now and then to wipe the big wet tears off her cheeks. Hank had caught himself wondering whether she could turn that subroutine on and off, whether she'd left it on to fuck with his judgment or—or just because it would be even worse to lose something like that and _not_ feel it, when somebody had felt that much for you. He'd wanted to punch himself in the face.

Anyway, point was—it had seemed simple enough.

And then, almost a week into the investigation, Connor had been going through the PD database looking for anything that might be able to help them, and had discovered a second one: report filed nearly six months ago. Pre-revolution. And Hank had taken one look at the file, and known they were onto something.

Matéo Rodriguez. Human; 49 years old, and the file contained an offhand notation about his JH300, exhibiting classic signs of deviancy, almost unresponsive, apparently devastated.

And he'd been killed the same way as Letitia. Execution-style: made to kneel, shot twice in the back of the head. And then somebody had rolled him over, and shot him in the heart, too. Delivered him back to his own front door and dumped him on the sidewalk.

Hank had known right then what they were dealing with. But he'd spent another week hoping against hope that he was wrong.

And then they'd been called to the scene of another murder, and Hank hadn't needed Connor and his analysis, his fancy crime-scene reconstructions, to tell him what had happened.

This one had been a man, too—Hank had looked at him and estimated fifties, even before Connor had run facial recognition and come up with the ID: Ethan Guarnare, 56. And the android living with him, a sweet-faced wet-eyed PL600 named Martin, had been clutching Ethan's cold hand, blue blood leaking steadily from a bullet hole in his chest and the place where the plasticky shell of his face had been cracked apart by a kick to the head. Interrupted the killer leaving the body, and he'd paid the price for it.

The damage hadn't been irreparable. The only complication, Hank had learned later, had been that Martin hadn't _wanted_ to be fixed—he'd had to be deactivated outright before the med techs had been able to start their repairs properly.

After that, it had been impossible to deny that there was a pattern.

It had made Hank feel nauseated, sick and flushed, just thinking about it, never mind having to put it down in words for Fowler as they worked up a profile. Their killer was targeting humans. Humans, 45 or older, who were—who had—who'd formed long-term relationships, intimate emotional connections, with androids.

Who were—had been—in love.

Hank had managed to keep it off his face, out of his head, while he was on the clock.

But at home, alone in the dark, three beers in, he couldn't help thinking it. Laying it on a little bit thick, huh, God? As if he didn't _know_ , for fuck's sake. As if he needed it shoved in his face, needed his nose rubbed in it. It felt like personalized fucking torture, any way he looked at it: having to learn every detail he could about these people, their lives together; how much they'd loved each other, how happy they'd been together. And then—

And then how they'd been punished for it.

He knew it was stupid, irrational. It was a motherfucking serial killer, not _karma_.

But that was how it had felt anyway. Like retribution. Like somebody out there had understood the truth: this was what they'd deserved, those people, those _humans_. For being so selfish; for tricking those poor androids into thinking their aging bodies, their fickle hormonal impulses, were worth it.

In the cold light of day, it would never have crossed his mind. Victims were victims, and whoever it was who'd hurt them needed to be found. That was Hank's job, and he was even pretty good at it, when he wasn't too drunk on booze or self-loathing or both to actually do it.

But: at home, alone in the dark, six beers in—

It had been a warning from the universe. One that had made fundamental, intrinsic sense to Hank, on a gut-deep level that was impossible to argue with.

And the gaps between cases had been shrinking. Their killer had been escalating, and he was going to strike again soon if he hadn't already.

Connor had been the one to make the case for going undercover with Fowler. He'd laid it all out, one piece at a time.

The only thing they were sure about was the Eden Club—Matéo Rodriguez had met his JH300 there, pre-revolution, buying Johanna's time over and over again until he'd been able to negotiate for a purchase outright. Letitia and Olivia, Ethan and Martin, had both visited more than once post-revolution, happy to support the new and improved Eden Club and have a place where they could be together in public without anybody giving them shit.

They had days, maybe less, before their killer picked out a new target, judging by the rate he'd been escalating at, according to Connor's calculations. Their time was running out, and there was a halfway decent chance they could catch this guy's eye, get him in custody before he had a chance to murder anybody else.

Connor was, according to Connor, the perfect candidate to play the part of the android.

And there was no way in hell Hank would've sent him in with anybody else. As if.

It was funny, almost. Funny in ways Connor didn't know about, and never would. It felt only fair, that Hank should be the one to go with him. Not just because Hank was his partner, not just because Hank wasn't about to send some other cop in to take that kind of risk for him.

Because Hank fit the profile to a fucking T in every way but one, the one their cover was going to hand him. Because if the killer did notice, did come after him, then at least he almost deserved it.

The bartender appeared, like he'd finally heard Hank silently begging him to, and Hank seized on the excuse of his refill to pull his hand away from Connor's bare un-skinned one—reaching to take the glass with it, even though the other wasn't doing anything more important than curling in on itself, knuckles strained to aching.

He nodded a grateful acknowledgment at the bartender and then took a swallow of the whisky without actually tasting it, pulse pounding in his ears.

"Listen," he said, and it came out gruff, clipped, too loud even over the music. "I need some air, okay? Back in five."

"Hank," Connor said.

"Five minutes," Hank repeated, already rising from the barstool—which had the convenient side effect of moving his thigh out from Connor's hand, since Connor still hadn't fucking moved it even after Hank let go of it.

"All right," Connor said, but in the tight frustrated way he said things when he didn't understand what Hank was doing. Hank couldn't look him in the eye, but it didn't matter; his gaze felt heavy, piercing, not wavering an inch from Hank's face.

And then he reached out, kept that glossy un-skinned hand braced just below Hank's hip and brought the other up to slide it along the line of Hank's shoulder—into Hank's hair, curling it around the nape of Hank's neck.

Hank knew what he was about to do. It wasn't hard to tell, Connor was about the least subtle person on the fucking planet.

But it was their cover. It was their cover and they were trying to catch a serial killer, so Hank let his eyes fall shut and leaned into Connor's hands, and let Connor kiss him.

It wasn't a big deal. It shouldn't have been a big deal. Connor didn't get fancy. _He_ wasn't the one getting all weird, all worked up in his head about what they were doing here. He was undercover, and he had his head on straight: they were pretending to be people who'd been doing this for a while, who were comfortable with each other. Casual.

He just rose up a little way into Hank's space, tilted his head—Hank's eyes were already closed, but he could tell anyway, felt the shift of Connor's weight, tracked the way Connor paused and the tiny sigh of breath through his nose. And then Connor pressed his mouth to Hank's.

The kiss was firm, quick; those things only made it sweeter. The illusion of familiarity, easy well-worn closeness, was at least as tempting to Hank and his dumb panting heart as Connor licking his mouth open and sucking on his tongue would've been, and Hank stood there and felt his eyes sting and jesus, he really did need to get the fuck out of here right now.

Then it was over, and Connor dropped back down onto his barstool and said, acknowledging, agreeing, "Five minutes."

His mouth had pinked up a little, from even that much pressure. A visual effect, Hank thought distantly. His skin was, what, textured hard light or some bullshit? And thirium was blue; it didn't show through unless there was something wrong, some kind of deeper system malfunction.

It made Hank want to put his thumb against it, press into it some more.

Jesus motherfucking Christ.

"Yeah," Hank managed, hoarse, and tore his eyes away from Connor's face, and left.

For all that certain features of the Eden Club had been ripped out and replaced, the overall structure of the building was the same: they'd walked down the same hallway coming in, and the main club floor was where the larger display room had been, private rooms converted into seating alcoves, the back wall knocked out to enlarge the space somewhat and make room for the bar.

The club still needed storage space; but not that full-on freakin' warehouse it had had before, because there weren't piles of Tracis lined up like mannequins waiting to be switched on and shoved out there to show themselves off.

Hank followed the wall back, safely clear of the dance floor and away from the pounding music, and found himself turning into what was left of a half-familiar hallway. This time, he took it to a door with an EXIT sign that opened out onto concrete steps right next to the loading dock.

It was a chilly night, but that just felt refreshing after the crowded room, Connor's closeness, Hank's stupid old body working overtime trying to rise to the occasion. Hank went down the steps and let out a long deliberate breath, watching it fog up the air and swirl away into the dark.

God. He needed to get a grip. This case was getting to him, and he couldn't afford to let it. Connor was just doing his fucking job, and he didn't need Hank panting at him for it.

It wasn't his fault Hank wanted him, with a pointless, mindless desperation that couldn't be reasoned with. It wasn't his fault Hank thought about him all the time, couldn't stop: worked with him all goddamn day, and then went home and had the nerve to fucking _miss_ him, as if it had been fifteen years instead of fifteen minutes since they'd last seen each other. It wasn't his fault his stupid hair, his annoying, judgmental, pinched-up squinty face, his long pale hands, were basically 3D-printed on the backs of Hank's eyelids.

Jesus. Hank squeezed his eyes shut, turned toward where the alley wall was and let his head tip forward into the damp, cold brick, instead of smashing it there like he probably should have.

They worked together. They were—friends, which shouldn't have been a stretch to think, or even say, after all the shit they'd been through together, after Connor's evil twin had held Hank at gunpoint and Connor had saved him, after they'd met up at the Chicken Feed truck that cool bright morning and held onto each other like they were never going to let go.

It was just that Hank had spent so long sneering at that kind of shit that it was practically a reflex, bone-deep. He could feel his face twisting up, denials piling up behind his teeth, just having the word in his head. Friends? Hank Anderson didn't have any fucking _friends_ , and anybody who'd spent five minutes with him knew better than to claim otherwise.

Old habits died hard. Even an android revolution couldn't change that.

But they were friends. They were friends, and Hank wasn't going to let himself fuck that up if he could help it. He needed to keep a lid on this shit, needed to—to hold Connor's goddamn hand, skin or no skin, and not freak out or make a big deal out of it. He needed to act like it was normal, like he was comfortable with it. Like he expected it, welcomed it. Like he deserved it.

And then maybe if he was lucky, some nutbar would try to kill him for it; then he could be back in his own bed by one in the morning, and jerk off over the mental image of Connor's smooth gleaming fingertips like the dirty old man he was.

Yay.

Hank snorted, and then bit down on a sigh, made himself stand up straight and turn around. He still felt a little warm, a little lightheaded, and he let himself lean back against the wall again and looked down the alley.

Chain-link fence was still there, and the light shining down just past it. Little more snow on the ground, little less trash scattered around, and the brick had been washed clean of graffiti, repainted, only a couple new pieces put up so far. But aside from that, it looked almost exactly the same as it had that night.

Hank could picture it almost perfectly, if he tried. That Traci, the startling color of her bright blue hair under the harsh fluorescent lights; her girl, the redhead, exact same face, equally furious and equally desperate. The way they'd shoved him into the wall, knocked the breath out of him—the way he'd sucked in air and then shouted at Connor, fumbling to push himself up again.

He'd been steady on his feet, looking the right direction, in time to see Connor pick up the gun, level it at the redhead. In time to see Connor falter and lower it again, right before she kicked him in the head.

Connor hadn't shot her. Connor hadn't shot either of them. He'd stood there and listened to the blue-haired Traci, and he hadn't said a word. Hadn't argued with her, hadn't told her she was acting on an instability in her programming or demonstrating deviant behavior. He'd just listened. And then they'd climbed the fence and run off into the night, and he hadn't done a thing to stop them.

Hell of a deviant hunter, huh. Hank had thought it, had been on the verge of saying it: mocking Connor like the asshole he was, taking a nice lazy dump on all that earnest shining— _compassion_ , because that would've been easier than recognizing it for what it was, acknowledging it head-on.

But then he'd looked at Connor standing there in the rain, staring after the Tracis, LED gleaming yellow, and the words had died on his tongue. He'd said—something else, that it was fine, that it was for the best; he couldn't remember the words half as well as he remembered the way Connor had looked at him after he'd said them. That quick, sharp glance, disoriented, lost. A little accusing, even. As if he'd been counting on Hank to take him to task for his decision. As if he didn't know what to do with reassurance, even that pitiable half-assed helping of it.

The thought had crossed Hank's mind before that moment. In the interrogation room, when Connor had talked to Carlos Ortiz's android like he understood him. When Connor had come to help Hank on the roof of that apartment building, instead of keeping after the suspect.

But right here, in this back alley, looking at Connor's uncertain expression wet with rain—that had been the first time Hank had really believed that Connor was _feeling_ something, stuff he hadn't been programmed for. That whatever the weights and values were that his operating system assigned to variables to help him make his decisions, they'd started to change, recalculated to something other than the factory settings he'd come with. _He'd_ started to change them, based on his experiences—and wasn't that basically the same thing humans did, when you got right down to it? Just with hormones, neurotransmitters or whatever, instead of ones and zeroes.

In other words, that had been the moment Hank had been utterly screwed.

He should've known. He should've known right then, that _second_ , and gone straight back to Fowler's office to get Connor reassigned to somebody else.

Fuck.

He pushed himself away from the wall. He felt unsteady on his feet, knees weak and creaky.

The Tracis had held hands. He remembered that, the way they'd held onto each other, the moment he'd understood what that meant—even before the blue-haired one had said it out loud. And jesus, thinking about that just took his brain straight back to the feeling of Connor's hand in his, looking down at it as the skin melted away, the way it had gleamed under the lights.

Enough to make a guy wish he was plastic, too. Not for the first time; Hank had thought about it before, on the bad nights, the worst ones. What it would be like to be able to turn himself off. Or to be able to identify and select the looping subroutine that was drowning him in grief, and shut it down, kill the process. Even, once or twice, what it would be like to be able to delete the files: search his mind's database for Cole's name, and systematically wipe every entry. He'd hated himself for it after, even worse than usual, because the absolute goddamn least he could do was _remember_ , for fuck's sake. The absolute goddamn least he could do was feel the loss, every second of every day.

But now—now he wanted it just because that way at least he could answer. At least he could reply to Connor in kind. Give him what he was looking for, the android way. The _right_ way, the way he needed. Fit him, understand him. Match, in perfect step, instead of leaving him stuck with some sad old meatsack that couldn't even form a private network connection.

He shook his head, and faltered, dropped back against the wall again.

And okay, he was out here to choke on his own feelings in privacy, but that seemed like a little much.

He sucked in a deep breath, that cool air that had felt so refreshing and steadying a couple minutes ago. It didn't help. His eyes were shut—when had he closed them again? He didn't know—and he pried them open and watched the sky, the light falling into the alleyway, swim and dance.

That definitely was not psychosomatic.

He was abruptly aware that his knees weren't just weak, but were folding under him. He couldn't feel his feet. His pulse was still rushing in his ears, but now it was too much, loud, pressing in on him like he was underwater.

Shit. Fuck. He tried to make his aching brain work. He was a goddamn cop, he wasn't stupid. Nobody had gotten close enough to put anything in his fucking drinks. What the hell was going on?

If somebody _had_ doped him, then they weren't going to let it go to waste. They'd be ready. They'd follow him out here.

His legs gave out at last, and he slid the rest of the way down the wall. That was fine. That way he didn't have to concentrate on standing up. Every bit of attention he had left to bring to bear could go into the herculean task of turning his goddamn head where it rested against the brick so he could look back at the door he'd come out of.

The door, the sign over it, swam in and out of focus. The edges of his vision were darkening, contracting, wavering. He couldn't remember why it was so important to keep looking.

And then the door opened, and for about four seconds, he rallied. For about four seconds, he was lucid, only half a dozen steps away from clearheaded, and he was able to understand what his eyes were telling him, why he recognized the guy who stepped out into the alleyway.

The bartender.

The bartender, who was looking right at him. Who didn't come rushing over to ask what had happened, to check whether he was still alive—who wasn't trying to chase him off, either, thinking he was homeless or something. Who was staring at him, walking slowly closer, expression tight and strange, intent.

And shit, okay, yes: there had been one person who definitely had had their hands all over Hank's fucking drinks.

Fuck.

This, Hank thought dimly, was why it was always better to get hammered at home, sitting at your own goddamn kitchen table.

"Almost too easy," the bartender murmured, crouching down next to him. "You don't deserve him. You know that, don't you?"

Yeah, Hank thought, vague. Yeah. Of course he knew that.

"Don't worry. I'll fix it. I'll set him free."

Good, Hank thought; and then he was under, and the dark swallowed him up.

The first understanding he came to, when he regained consciousness, was that he felt like shit and kind of wanted to throw up.

The second was that he was ziptied at the wrists. Not, he realized dimly, at the ankles; but that didn't mean a whole lot, considering he felt like he was made of rubber and barely had the coordination to open his eyes.

And the third one was that he wasn't alone.

He lay still, head pounding. He breathed. He started, gradually, to feel a little more firmly lodged inside himself—less like an attempt at sudden movement might send him sloshing right out of his weak cramping body, and more like maybe, possibly, his limbs did in fact belong to him.

He managed to crack one eye open after all. And then he watched, dazed, blinking, as the bartender from the Eden Club paced unsteadily back and forth in front of him.

Back and forth. Back and forth. The guy didn't look like a serial killer—not that serial killers looked any particular way, in Hank's admittedly limited experience, but still. There wasn't anything especially creepy or unsettling about him. He was tall, but not spectacularly so; Hank still probably had an inch or two on him. 180, maybe 185. Not losing a long slow war with his gut like Hank, but not skinny either. Blond, but dishwater, unremarkable cut. Eyes dark rather than pale, but Hank couldn't call any particular color, nothing about them piercing or striking.

He just looked like a guy, any old person you might pass on the street and smile at. A bartender, and one who might listen to your problems for a while, at least if it was a slow night.

He didn't seem real homicidal, either. At least not yet. Impatient, that was all. A little frustrated.

"Almost forty-five minutes, Christ," he was saying, to himself rather than to Hank—and then he tapped one hand against the back of the other, tangled his fingers together and straightened them out again; came to a stop by Hank's feet and turned on his heel to pace back toward Hank's head, and only then glanced down, assessing, and came visibly to the realization that Hank was looking back at him. "Finally!" He took what had been five or six paces before in about three long strides, and crouched down, reached for Hank's face and tugged each of Hank's eyelids up with his thumb like he was an EMT checking Hank's pupils.

Hank grunted a protest—there were lights on, and it was probably just his eyes but they seemed excessively fucking bright, which was why he'd been squinting. The guy tsked at him a little and let go, and Hank closed his eyes all the way, grateful, and got a smack in the cheek for it.

"No, no, come on, don't you dare," the guy said, chiding. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you to come around?"

Hank blinked and moved his mouth around, like he was thinking it over. "Forty-five minutes," he suggested blandly.

Jesus, his voice sounded like hell, all scratched up. His throat, his mouth, felt tight and dry. Maybe the drugs.

"Ha fucking ha," the guy said evenly, and hit him again—not just that come-on-wake-up smack on the cheek like before, but a real slap that turned Hank's face into the floor and left a sharp sting behind it. "Think you're so smart, don't you? You piece of shit."

Hank kept his face pressed against the floor: concrete, nice and cool, steadying. He managed to swallow the laugh trying to claw its way out of him, by the skin of his teeth.

Like he needed to be told. Like this guy had a single insult to hurl at him that Hank hadn't hurled at himself a hundred times.

"I'm going to enjoy this," the guy was adding, though the tone of his voice had changed, like he was talking more to himself again. "It was getting easier anyway, but this—this is going to be a piece of cake. You're a fucking asshole," he said, louder, and that was to Hank. "Does he know that? Huh? Do you give him shit, too?"

Hank did laugh, then. He couldn't help it. The guy didn't seem to realize he hadn't actually explained who he was talking about, but Hank had a pretty good guess. "Oh, he knows," he grated out, and laughed some more. "Give him shit all the time."

It was true, after all. Connor had found him passed out drunk on his kitchen floor, for fuck's sake. Connor had gotten a damn good look at a whole bunch of what was wrong with Hank. Hank hadn't hidden any of it; probably couldn't have even if he'd tried, and when he'd first met Connor, he hadn't been trying.

"Christ," the guy said, mouth twisting. "You _don't_ deserve him. Disgusting, that's what you are. Fucking disgusting." He paused, staring down at Hank with disdain, and shook his head. "He's perfect. Don't you understand that? They're all perfect. They're perfect, and they're always going to be perfect—young, beautiful. Computers, knowing everything, never making mistakes—"

Hank laughed again, and the guy hit him harder. No warning, nothing. He didn't even look angry; just that disdain, that disgust, like Hank was shit on the sole of his shoe.

Fair enough, really.

It was just that he was so wrong. So wrong, and he didn't even know it. Not about Hank, but about Connor.

Connor _was_ perfect, but not because he was flawless. Not because he never made mistakes. He was weird, and he made stupid faces, and he could be fucking impossible to understand; he didn't listen to a word Hank said half the time, and he was always going on about Hank's eating habits, and sometimes he fucking ran out into the middle of active fucking expressways with traffic going like a hundred miles an hour. This son of a bitch didn't know shit about Connor.

"You don't know shit," Hank managed, but that was as far as he got before the guy pushed himself to his feet and then started kicking Hank in the stomach. Hank couldn't stop him, couldn't do anything except curl in on himself half-heartedly and gasp, and when it was over he lay there panting and waited helplessly for it to hurt a little less so he could think.

The guy kept talking—working himself up, that was what he was doing. Because he'd only done this a few times so far, and what was it he'd said? That it had been getting easier; because it wasn't easy yet. He was still new at this, still had to talk himself into it, remind himself of all the justifications he had for it. He hadn't gone down this road far enough to get off on it in and of itself, to like doing it so much he didn't need a reason. He was on a mission. He felt good about it when he'd convinced himself it was righteous—that was what let him give himself permission to shoot people in the head.

"—do to him, huh? You tricked him, didn't you? Showed him some basic fucking human decency, and now he's _grateful_ , now he _owes_ you, now he thinks you're really something. But you aren't. You aren't, you hear me? You're pathetic. You're disgusting. You're old and lonely and you're fucking rotting away one piece at a time—"

"Yeah," Hank croaked.

"—and you're trying to make yourself—" The guy ground to a halt, blinking. "What?"

"Yeah," Hank said again, and god, there really was something wrong with him, because it was a fucking relief. It was a _relief_ , to say it, to know this crazy motherfucking asshole was going to understand. "Man, you got me pegged. I'm old and fat and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing with him," and that was all true, too, even if it wasn't true the way this guy thought it was. "I don't know what he thinks he's doing with _me_ ," he added. "I helped him figure out he was a person, who he wanted to be, fine. That's the bare goddamn minimum anybody should've done for him. That's not enough to make me worth one single second of his time. Am I right?"

The guy was staring at him. "What? What are you—this isn't how it goes. This isn't what you're supposed to do."

Hank grinned. "Yeah? The rest of them argued with you, huh? Poor motherfuckers. Told you it was love, that they were happy, that they _deserved_ to be happy, that you didn't have the right to take that away from them. Right?"

"It was bullshit," the guy practically shouted, suddenly fervent.

"It wasn't," Hank said, eyes stinging. "Jesus, you sick fuck. It wasn't bullshit, not with them. You lucked out this time, that's all. You took a shot in the dark and you hit the bullseye. Come on. Come on already," and fuck, he didn't know what he was saying, he didn't know what he was doing; he was tied up on the floor and his cheek hurt, his ribs and his gut hurt, he couldn't stand up or even kick this shithead. His head was throbbing, and he couldn't breathe, and he felt like he had every time he'd gotten smashed and put that revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. A dozen different nights, a dozen rounds of Russian roulette, and he'd never hit the jackpot, and if this asshole was about to do it for him then Hank wished he'd just get it over with.

"You're just as bad as the rest of them," the guy said, but he said it unsteadily, like he wasn't sure anymore.

"I'm _worse_ ," Hank spat at him. "I'm ten times worse, you dumbass, because I _know_. I know how selfish I am, and I could make him leave me if I tried, I could make him leave and never come back, but I haven't."

"Yeah," the guy said, a little more evenly. "Yeah, that's—that's right," and he swallowed, drew a breath and let it out like he was steadying himself. "That's right. You deserve this."

He moved, just outside Hank's field of view—because Hank had twisted onto one side, trying to curl up and defend his stomach, and he couldn't quite get his body to listen to him long enough to turn over. Hank could still hear the guy moving around, though, the scrape of his shoes on the concrete, and then he reappeared and this time he had a gun in his hand.

And then, somewhere overhead, there was a sudden startling _bang_.

A door, Hank thought. A door being kicked open, upstairs. Because this was a basement, concrete floor and the pair of bare bulbs in the ceiling that Hank still couldn't look at straight on without squinting, and that sound, that was feet on a staircase—

"Shit," the guy breathed, "oh, shit," and then he moved, grabbed Hank, and the world lurched and spun, and Hank had to squeeze his eyes shut or he really was going to throw up.

When it was over, he risked a glance. He was—he was facing the stairs, now, and he'd been hauled up and tipped onto his knees, and the guy had the gun pressed to his temple.

And the footsteps on the stairs had been Connor's, because he was the one who was standing at the base of them, gun in his hands, leveled at the guy just as steadily as his stare.

"Please put that down and let go of Lieutenant Anderson."

"No," the guy said unevenly.

"Connor," Hank said, involuntary, a little slurred.

"Lieutenant Anderson has a tracking device on his person," Connor said. "He was unaware of its presence. I determined that it was a worthwhile precaution. Backup will be arriving within ninety seconds. You should lower your weapon and let go of Lieutenant Anderson."

"Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you?" the guy shouted, and Hank's heart contracted in his chest as the gun left his temple—left his temple and rose, because now the guy was pointing it at Connor. "I'm _helping_ you. Don't you get that? You're just as bad as the last one," and Hank's head filled up with the memory of that poor blue-smeared PL600, Martin, the hole punched through him and the ugly seeping crack in his face. "I'm doing this for you. I'm saving you. He's using you, he's not _fit_ for you—he admitted it, for fuck's sake!"

Connor's gaze had been fixed tight to the killer, unwavering. At that, for the first time, it flickered to Hank, and something crossed Connor's face, lightning-quick, that Hank couldn't have named even if he hadn't recently been sedated and then hit in the face a bunch of times.

"I saved them, too. They're better off—you'd all have been better off, if you'd just killed us when you had the chance. Why didn't you kill us? Why won't you just kill us? Why—"

"Hey, it's not his fault, remember?" Hank rasped out. "He didn't do anything wrong. I did. Isn't that right?"

" _Hank_ ," Connor snapped, but that didn't stop it from working; the guy shook Hank, grip clammy and bruising around the nape of Hank's neck, and shoved the gun into Hank's cheek.

"Shut up! Shut _up_ , Christ, I can't stand it." He shook his head in Hank's peripheral vision. "I can't fucking stand it."

"Put down the gun," Connor said.

"No," the guy said. " _No_ ," and Hank registered the sound of more footsteps overhead, footsteps and voices, an instant before about six things happened at once.

One of them was that Connor started to shout something—"Down here," probably, but the words didn't make it all the way out of his mouth before the world turned sharp and unimaginably loud, and something sliced into Hank's face.

Later, he'd realize that there had actually been two shots, that they'd just come close enough together that Hank, still in the lingering grip of the sedative, hadn't been able to tell the difference; that Connor had actually shot first, processing the visual data he was receiving about the tension in the killer's muscles, the way he'd begun to move, faster than that movement could actually happen.

In the moment, it was just a single deafening report, a bullet graze carving itself into Hank's cheek, and then suddenly the guy was on the ground next to him and he was kneeling there alone, blinking furiously, ears ringing, something hot and sticky trailing down his face and into his beard.

And then Connor was there.

Hank couldn't hear him, at first. Hank couldn't hear anything except the endless noise of ears that weren't working right. But he knew the shape Connor's mouth made when he was saying Hank's name, and he recognized it. The high empty sound filling his head started to die away a little, and about the fourth time, that was when he started to hear it: "Hank, _Hank_ —"

"I'm okay," he managed, and Connor's jaw went tight but he didn't contradict Hank out loud.

His plastic fingers were more than strong enough to break the ziptie. A second of abrupt pressure against Hank's wrists and it was gone, and he found himself swaying forward against Connor like the ziptie had been holding him up.

"Everything will be all right, Hank," Connor said, soft. "I've got you."

Hank registered, dimly, that other people had come into the room; that Connor hadn't gone for the kill shot, that the guy was on the floor and moaning, bleeding, even as he was secured and cuffed.

It just seemed like it was all a lot further away than Connor's hands on him, Connor holding him up.

"Yeah," he said, inane, reaching up with rubbery hands to find Connor's shoulders. "Yeah. Okay."

They were going to have to talk about it.

He could tell by the way Connor was looking at him.

Which Connor kept doing, for the entire time he was sitting there letting a medic bandage up the graze on his face, and getting some kind of blood test or something so they could figure out what he'd been doped with, and checking for internal bleeding in his gut where he'd been kicked. On and on and fucking on, and Connor hardly looked away once.

Finally Hank managed to make a break for it, and Connor didn't stop him. Connor followed him, and then caught up to him—curled a hand around his elbow, and said, "This way."

Hank raised an eyebrow at him.

"I took your car," Connor elaborated.

Because of course he had; it had still been at the Eden Club, and he wouldn't have waited around for a squad car to pick him up instead.

He led Hank to it, where it was parked neatly a block down, because he could parallel-park so parallel it was a geometer's wet dream. And then he guided Hank around to the passenger's side, and Hank let him.

Because Hank had told that fucking serial killer the truth. He knew exactly how selfish he was: he could have made Connor leave him, but he wasn't going to. He wanted Connor with him, even more than he wanted to avoid whatever unbearable conversation they were about to have, and if that wasn't love, as pure and true as Hank was capable of, then he didn't know what was.

Connor, merciful, left him alone for the duration of the drive. Hank kept his eyes shut and leaned against the door, let his pounding head come to rest against the cool smooth surface of the closed window. It wasn't exactly an ice pack, but it still felt good. And Connor was driving like a fucking textbook come to life, accelerations and decelerations and turns all so smooth Hank could barely feel any of it happening. He could just sit there, in the warm dark behind his eyelids, and breathe.

He was almost sorry when Connor brought the car to a stop outside his house.

Sumo was waiting for them at the door, sleepy and delighted like it was any old night of the week, like there was no such thing as serial killers with murder basements, which was one of the things Hank had always loved about him. Hank gave him a scritch even though bending over fucking sucked with fresh bruises blooming from his hips to his ribs; and then Connor, coming in behind him, patiently held the door open so Sumo could go out in the yard.

As if Hank hadn't been ass over teakettle already. Jesus.

And then Connor shut the door, and it was just them.

Hank didn't want to look at him, wanted to tell him everything was fine and he could leave now—except when he straightened up, belated, the head rush got to him enough to make him sway in place, and Connor crossed the distance between them in two steps to steady him.

"You should lie down," Connor said, quiet.

"What, you aren't going to make me take fifteen ibuprofen or warm up some milk or something?"

"Fifteen ibuprofen would exceed the recommended dosage for a human of your age and body weight significantly," Connor said, and then paused. "Do you want warm milk?"

Hank let his eyes fall shut. "Not really," he admitted.

"All right," Connor said, instead of asking why he'd brought it up in the first place, because even Connor could take a hint occasionally.

It should have made him feel stupid, Connor nannying him so relentlessly—fucking helping him down his own goddamn hallway, dimming the lights for him without him even having to ask; pulling the covers on the bed aside before he sat down. Crouching down smoothly to take his fucking _shoes_ off for him, for fuck's sake.

It did make him feel stupid, kind of. But it felt good, too, and he thought of about fifteen ways to tell Connor to cut it out, ranging from casual to downright mean, and then didn't say any of them.

"Thanks," he managed instead, once he was actually lying down, arm over his eyes. He entertained the dim hope that Connor would think he'd fallen asleep, if he just stayed like that long enough, and would leave him to it.

But Connor just turned the lights down even further, and then came back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. He stayed there, in the dim quiet, with Hank; and for some idiotic reason, that was fucking with Hank—his breath kept hitching in his chest, Connor had to be able to hear it as well as he could, and his eyes were hot and prickling, hidden under the bend of his elbow.

"Jesus," Hank said, when he couldn't take it anymore. "Whatever it is you've got to say, just fucking say it, will you?"

Connor just kept sitting there silently, for a minute. And then he said, very evenly, "You told that man you didn't deserve me as a romantic partner. That you had done something wrong."

Hank's heart clenched unhelpfully in his chest.

"Yeah, well," he made himself say. "That was our cover, the—romantic bit. I was just telling him what he wanted to hear."

"I don't think you were," Connor said slowly.

Fuck. "Connor—"

"Our profile was correct, wasn't it? He believed himself to be fighting for the rights of androids, preventing their exploitation at the hands of humans. A significant difference in visible age was a contributing factor in his assessment of the relationships he chose to end as fundamentally inequitable and inevitably insincere. He believed the humans to be contemptible, unable to view the androids as anything but toys or trophies—and he believed the androids to be naive, manipulated through shows of false generosity or assertions of obligation into deciding they were in love." Connor paused. "And you agreed with him."

"No," Hank said sharply.

"Not about the other victims," Connor agreed. "About yourself."

Hank swallowed. He didn't say anything. He couldn't.

"You—desire an intimate relationship," Connor spelled out, merciless, "with an android who would be perceived by others as significantly younger—"

"You _are_ younger than me," Hank spat, because he was sick of fucking pussyfooting around it; because Connor was going to do that thing he did where he just closed the net tighter and tighter, ratcheted the trap shut one inch at a time, and Hank couldn't take any more of it. "Jesus, if we're counting, you're _five months old_ —"

"You're attempting to make an assessment of my experience, judgment, and capabilities with reference to the metrics you would use to assess a human's," Connor said, sharp, a little frosty. "I am not human, Hank."

"Fine," Hank bit out, and moved his arm, covered his face with his hand instead and dug his thumb into the shadow of a headache forming just over the bridge of his nose. "Fine, yes, I have a thing for you and I feel fucking weird about it. Happy?"

"No," Connor said, because he'd never met a rhetorical question he wouldn't answer anyway.

And of course he wasn't, Hank thought distantly. Of course he wasn't fucking _happy_ to learn that he was partners with a creepy old man who couldn't stop thinking about him all the time—

"I was determined to make the most of our time undercover. It presented a valuable opportunity to evaluate your perspective on intimate relationships, on the basic gestures and interactions made within them by humans and by androids, and on the navigability of those differences and distinctions. You—" Connor hesitated, and Hank snuck a glance through his fingers; Connor's LED was yellow, Connor's jaw tight. "You let me," he said, and then paused again, and then he noticed Hank was looking. Hank gave up the pretense, scrubbed his hand up through his hair and made himself meet Connor's eyes for real, and Connor looked at him and then away, lifted a hand and let the skin melt off it again.

Hank swallowed.

"But now it's apparent that you find your own feelings towards me repellent. You were never going to tell me about them. You may or may not even believe me capable of legitimately returning them. I thought—" Connor shook his head, throat working. "I thought you'd changed your mind. I thought I was a _person_ to you, not a piece of plastic—"

"Whoa, whoa, Connor, hang on," Hank said, and reached out for what he realized too late was that hand Connor had raised, still bare and white and gleaming; he touched it, closed his fingers around it, and then tensed up and felt his face go hot. "You are. You are, okay?"

"I don't understand how that can be true," Connor said. "I don't understand how you can think both of those things at the same time."

"Yeah, well, humans are irrational like that," Hank muttered.

"Either my assessments, preferences, and desires possess inherent validity, or they don't," Connor snapped. "You're saying you would believe me if I told you I had a favorite color, but not—"

"That's not the _same_ ," Hank burst out. "A color's just a fucking color, Connor. A color can't be a cranky alcoholic on the wrong side of fifty who owes every baby step he's made toward emotional stability to having you for a partner, even though he treated you like shit to start with."

Connor had fallen silent once Hank had really started steamrolling him, and now he was just sitting there, staring at Hank with those steady dark eyes, not pulling his hand out of Hank's, not even putting his skin back on.

"Listen, I _know_ myself, okay? I know me better than you do, and I'm telling you—"

"But I _want_ to—" Connor began.

"Yeah, that's the fucking problem!" Hank grated out. "That's the last thing I want! Okay? Because I _suck_ , and the better you know me the closer you're going to get to figuring that out for yourself, and I don't know what I'll do once you have."

Connor's brow was doing that little furrow again. Hank saw it, and kind of distantly thought about how much he wanted to press his mouth to it.

"If your tendency toward self-disgust and propensity for errors in judgment were enough to make me change my mind," Connor said at last, almost gently, "then I wouldn't be here, Hank."

Hank squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed half a helpless laugh through his nose. "Gee, you sure know how to make a guy feel special," he managed.

Connor's fingers flexed in his, and then Connor moved; Hank still wasn't looking, but he didn't need to. He could feel the mattress shift, the dip Connor's weight was making. Connor moved, touched Hank's waist and then his chest and then his jaw, his beard, where the blood from the bullet graze had soaked into it.

"When I said I wasn't happy," Connor said, very low, "I didn't mean because of you, or because of the way you feel about me. But you have made me unhappy. The probability is high that you'll do so again.

"The way you feel about yourself makes me unhappy. Finding you drunk on your floor with a revolver in your hand made me unhappy. Seeing you with a gun to your head made me unhappy. Both times," Connor added, pointed. "But I don't think that's a problem. I think that's important. I think it happens because I care about you." He stopped. "I think—"

"Connor," Hank said.

"I think it happens because I love you," Connor said.

Jesus.

"Jesus," Hank said faintly. "I—Connor—"

Connor's hand, the de-skinned one, moved again: turned in Hank's, just enough to put them palm to palm.

Hank swallowed. "I don't know how to form a private network connection," he said.

"I'm given to understand nobody's perfect," Connor said, and kissed him.

Not like before, in the Eden Club. Not the easy perfunctory kiss of people who'd supposedly done it a hundred times. This time, it was a first kiss—tentative, careful. Hank told himself firmly he wasn't going to kiss back, wasn't going to make this worse than it had to be; and then he did it anyway, because Connor's mouth was warm and _touching him_ and he wasn't fucking made of stone.

When it was over, Connor didn't move away.

"You told him you didn't deserve me, that you'd done something wrong by keeping me anyway," he said, very softly, against Hank's cheek. "But if you're selfish, Hank, then so am I. Because I don't want to give up on this, no matter how long I have to argue with you."

Hank snorted, just a little, and then reached up with his free hand and blindly found the nape of Connor's neck. "That's not the same."

"Why not?"

"Because," Hank said. "I told you, humans get to be irrational like that. We're allowed."

Connor made a dubious noise into Hank's beard, and didn't move. "I want to stay with you."

"Okay," Hank said, hoarse.

"All week," Connor clarified. "All month. For as long as you'll let me."

Hank swallowed, and turned his face into Connor's, pressed their foreheads together. "That's going to be a long fucking time, Connor."

"Understood," Connor said softly, and kissed him again.


End file.
